


The Incomplete Works of Emmanuel Allen

by violue



Series: Hazelnut Valley [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Author Catharsis, M/M, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 20:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violue/pseuds/violue
Summary: Castiel has been working hard on his new book, but Dean's starting to miss him.





	The Incomplete Works of Emmanuel Allen

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. :)

**((February 2017))**

  
  


“Cas.”

“ _Cas_.”

“ _Caaaaaaaaassssss._ ”

“ _CAS, DINNER._ ”

Dean listens for the sound of Castiel’s office door opening and closing, but no sound comes. He sighs, frowning down at the congealing pot of macaroni and cheese. Good macaroni and cheese, with real cheese and cut up hot dogs and everything. Dean bought _gruyere_ for this. Castiel loves his macaroni and cheese. But apparently it’s not enough to lure him out of his office. He’s been working non-stop on his new series, and Dean feels like the only time he sees the guy is when he wakes up in the morning to go open the store, and Castiel is always asleep. They share a house, but Dean’s pretty sure they haven’t had a real conversation in two weeks.

On the one hand, he wants to complain, but on the other… the sooner Castiel finishes his new book, the sooner Dean can read it.

Still. It’s dinner time, and Dean is lonely. He puts a lid over his pot of food and turns, recoiling slightly when he sees Lamia and Okami on the kitchen counter _watching_ him. It’s even creepier when there’s more than one cat watching him. _Studying_ him. He turns the faucet on in the sink and gets his hand wet, then flicks the water at his observers. Both immediately dash away, and Dean smirks, even though he’s sure next time all four of those fucking monsters will be on the counter.

Dean sure does miss the days before he found at least one long cat hair in every fucking meal, but he can’t seem to permanently keep those beasts off the kitchen counter. Or the couch. Or the bed when Dean and Castiel are trying to have sex.

Ah, sex. Dean vaguely remembers sex. Warm hands, soft gasps, sore thigh muscles in the morning, maybe an aching ass. He sure misses that, but it’s hard to have sex with a guy that won’t come out of his office.

If he didn’t wake up next to a clingy unconscious octopus of a man every morning, Dean would be certain Castiel had actually died days ago.

He goes up to the second floor, over to the little room next to theirs. It’s Castiel’s office, though Dean has suggested several times that it should be a bedroom for his brood of giant forest cats. He expects it to be locked, as Castiel has taken to doing that whenever Dean gets nosy, but when he turns the handle the door opens.

He’s not sure what he’ll find when he steps inside. A withered corpse sitting at Castiel’s desk, fingers still poised over his laptop keyboard? Hundreds of stacks of paper surrounding Castiel like a cocoon? An empty room with a Castiel-shaped hole in the window? No, just his boyfriend at his desk, face pressed into the polished wood in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable. Next to his head is his laptop, with what looks to be a blank document open.

“I’m interrupting something important, aren’t I?” he says.

Castiel doesn’t respond, and for a second Dean thinks maybe he’s asleep. But no, there’s no way anyone could be asleep with their face mashed into a desk like that.

“I hate everything,” Castiel finally says.

Dean glances at the blank document again. It’s not totally blank, it does have the partial sentence _Claire held up the—_ typed out. “Dude, did you lose all your progress or something?”

Castiel sighs. Seriously, how is he not in pain with the way he’s sitting? “No, I didn’t. There is no progress to lose.”

“There’s four words there.”

“I’m aware.”

“Is this a new draft?”

“No.”

“A separate chapter document?”

“No.”

“That’s the _entirety_ of your new book?”

“It is.”

_What._ “You’ve been in here for days, man.”

“I know.”

“Like… you’re in here all the time. I’m not even sure I remember what your face looks like.”

“I’m waiting for inspiration to strike.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s working.”

“I’m starting to suspect that.”

“Have you really been in here every single day _not_ writing?”

“I’ve done other things.”

“Like what?”

Castiel lifts his head. His face is all red from being mashed into his desk, and he clearly hasn’t shaved recently. “Read one-star reviews of my books on Goodreads and look at expensive cat toys on Amazon.”

“For fuck’s sake, man.”

“Get me out of here,” Castiel says mournfully, before letting Dean pull him out of his chair.

“Come on, Cas. I made dinner.”

“I heard, but I couldn’t seem to summon the will to move.”

“So…” Dean tugs Castiel’s hand, leading him out of the office and toward the stairs. “This is you with writer’s block, huh?”

“I just keep staring at the screen and no words are coming out. I made character profiles for my new characters, an outline of plot points I wanted to hit… but I can’t seem to _get started_.”

“Well… dude if your brain isn’t ready, wait until it is?” Dean parks Castiel at the table in the kitchen and starts scooping macaroni into bowls.

“I have a deadline to consider.”

“So… move it.”

Castiel looks up at Dean like he’s just suggested garnishing their dinner with kitty litter. “I can’t just wave my hands and _poof,_ the deadline is moved.”

“I’m sure it would get in the way of you sitting in front of your laptop doing _nothing_ all day, but you could try it.”

“I’ve never asked for an extension before.”

“So?”

“It feels like failure.” Castiel eats a forkful of his food as Dean sits, and for a moment the troubled scrunch in his eyebrows fades. “You used gruyere.”

“And cheddar. Gotta have some cheddar.”

“It’s wonderful…”

“You know having writer’s block isn’t a failure, right? It’s just… you know. A thing that happens. And you write all the time. You’ve been writing for years. Maybe your creative juices need a break.”

Castiel grimaces. “Juices?”

“Yeah, that sounded kind of gross. But you get what I’m saying, right?”

“On an intellectual level, I do. Logically I know I cannot force words to come out if they aren’t there, that I’d be happier if I postponed my deadline instead of sitting in my office all day looking up people I used to go to school with on Facebook and playing that game where you click on a cookie. I know, but it feels so wrong. If I put this book on hold, I’m giving up.”

Dean knows a little something about hanging onto a shitty situation for no real reason. “Not forever, Cas.”

“What if it is? What if I never write anything again?” Castiel’s no longer eating. He looks scared.

“You’ll find other stuff to do. You’ll read. You’ll buy cat toys on Amazon. You’ll learn to cook without using a microwave.”

“But if I’m not writing, I’m not… I’m not…”

“You’re not what?” Dean’s lost. He wants to understand so he can fix this, but he _doesn’t_ understand what Castiel is getting at. Dean’s had artistic blocks plenty of times, it always passes. It can be annoying, even make Dean restless, but it’s never been like whatever Castiel is going through.

“I don’t know who I am if I’m not writing.”

“Cas, it’s been two weeks.”

“No, it’s been months. This, locking myself in my office, that’s been two weeks. I have all the time in the _world,_ and nothing is happening.”

“A few months… that’s still a drop in the bucket.”

“It doesn’t feel that way. It feels like the beginning of the end.”

“You can’t know that. Have you ever had really bad sex, and you know the easiest way to end it is to fucking _come_ already, but it’s just not happening, and the more you try to will it to happen, the more it just won’t fucking happen?”

Castiel stares at Dean, aghast. “I… what? No?”

“Oh. Well, the point is, trying to force it isn’t going to fix anything. You’re just going to get more and more frustrated and eventually purposefully hit your head on the wall just so you can get out of it.”

“ _What_?”

“You get what I’m saying.”

Castiel has the exact expression he did the first time he saw Dean scaling a fish. “I… suppose so, though I really think the comparison to sex was unnecessary.”

Dean shrugs and finally digs into his food. God he loves cheese. “Just speaking in the language I’m fluent in.”

Castiel nods, resuming his eating. The meal mostly passes in silence. Dean knows what he said isn’t enough, that Castiel is having some sort of crisis of identity. He wishes he knew what he could say to fix it, but he’s had enough emotional turmoil to know that things don’t usually get better because of a few hopeful words. Especially since Dean doesn’t have the same artistic knack for words.

Still, there has to be something he can say to help.

“Reading about the adventures of Jody and Donna over the past decade has brought me so much comfort, your books got me through some really tough times. If you never write another word again, what your stories did for me won’t magically vanish. I hope you know that.”

Castiel stops eating, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t look up at Dean.

“And I hope you’re not scared that you not writing will affect… me. Us. I’m in love with you, all the parts of you. And damn it, I _miss you_. So… please. Take a break. Stop trying to write. I can show you the ropes at the store, or you could hang out with Sam at the library, or you can hold Crocatta down while I give her that ear mite medication. Stop thinking about it for a while, and _definitely_ stop sitting around reading negative reviews of your books, Jesus Christ, and we’ll see what happens.”

Castiel’s still not making eye contact, but Dean can see the little smile forming. “You know, for a man that just compared writer’s block to delayed ejaculation, you have an absolutely wonderful way with words.”

Dean grins. “It’s a gift.”

“Well, I can’t promise to stop panicking about this, but I promise to try. A break sounds… really good.”

“I could teach you to carve shit.”

“Carve… shi—”

“Not _actual shit,_ Cas. I mean woodworking. It’s a good time-consuming, mind-numbing activity once you get used to it. Or Jo would teach you to play guitar… _ooh,_ you could watch those god awful telenovelas Sam and Madison are into.”

“You’re brimming with ideas, aren’t you?”

“Just brainstorming.”

Castiel’s elbows are on the table, and he rests his chin in his hands. “I love the storms your brain creates.”

There are warm, fuzzy feelings assaulting Dean’s insides as he smiles back, giddy and probably blushing. “Eat your damn dinner.” 

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> This was sort of a therapeutic exercise for me. I've had a lot of trouble writing the past two years, and I even had to give up on my DCBB (so uh if you were looking forward to reading John Winchester's Basement... that ain't happening). I love writing. I miss it. I think about it literally every day, but it's just not really happening in big bursts like it was before. 
> 
> It's been hard, and I've done a lot of venting about it on Twitter, and I used some of the kind, thoughtful responses I've received as inspiration for how Dean comforts Cas. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed. :) Many thanks to Beta Squad members Kris and Lydie for giving this a read-through. #Luediekris


End file.
